Mr Pointy
by wahinetoa
Summary: Kendra. Her life imprinted on an unusual witness. Teaser for a sequel not yet written.


****  
  
  
  
Mr. Pointy  
by Wahinetoa  
Disclaimer: I do not own 'em, and if I did Kendra would be kicking Drus  
toosh. I own Menelek but she is drawn from Storm aka Ororo Munroe from  
the Xmen.   
Dedicated to: Bianca Lawson who brought out the beautiful and tragic  
Jamacian Slayer and left us wanting more.   
Written for Por Siempre...Kendra site  
  
Authors notes: Forgive the ramble of this story, it came in a dream and  
tumbled out onto the page. I'm stacking my writing on the scripts of  
Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as the aired episode. In Dracula  
episode the stake she used was a different one, but in the script it was  
Mr Pointy. For this story, Mr Pointy wins out. Jamacia is spelt Xamacia  
by its native peoples. Arawak are the orginal inhabitants.   
  
***  
  
My name is Mr. Pointy. Don't let the childs nickname fool you, the tag has nothing  
to do with my disposition. It is however the name placed upon me by the  
one who would govern my life so inextricably, that even in death, she  
continues to lead me.  
  
Who is she? She is the beginning -   
  
~~*~~  
  
I was 20 years old, when I was taken from the bustle and noise of my  
home town in Kingston, Jamaica. Long hours on pot-holed roads, we  
traveled North from Kingston, dodging brightly Rasta colored school  
buses and bicycles towing wagons filled with craft wares for the busy  
markets. Day had slid into early noon, and before too long we reached  
the forests of the Blue Mountains. The sounds of the unknown made my  
carriers nervous and considering we were in the darkest and most  
forbidden part of Jamaica, their concerns were not unfounded. A twig  
snapped from the shelter of the woods, and in return, the weapons were  
drawn ready to attack the intruder. The leader stood at the ready,  
unhitching the leather flap of his holster and removing the pistol from  
the hold. "Ooo goes dere?!"  
  
A tall ghostly image of a woman stepped from the shelter of several Blue  
Mahoe trees into the fading afternoon light. She was in her early 50s,  
but looked and moved as if she was 30. She moved like a dancer and  
looked like one with her beautiful dark bronze skin contrasting with the  
light ankle-length flowing white robe, embroidered heavily with the paua  
shell colors of Arawak symbols of night and day. Her hair is moon white  
and curled into an intricate pattern that is placed high, and looks like  
a glorious shimmering crown.   
  
"Menelek," she calls out, coming further into the clearing.   
  
The woman was closer now, her eyes sparkled dangerously as she  
approached them, her entourage emerging from the jungle like panthers  
dressed in the same robes to shoulder me. The men who had brought me to  
this Valley of the Shadow are soon gone, no doubt their nightmares will  
always hold a little of this moment.   
  
Tension had fallen upon the group when we had come closer to the  
valleys. Murmurs of The Slayers birth filtered to me in native Patios.  
We scraped the eyebrow of the Jungle, and descended into a gateway of  
blackrock, entering the heavily defended fortress of a small Caribbean  
village. Twilight managed to reveal the still smoking ruins of what  
looked like an intense conflict. I wonder why most of the bastions were  
directed upward. What terrible kind of strike force would assail from  
the sky?  
  
We moved down, tension did not leave those that bore me up till we  
entered the village grounds. A great crowd flowed around us, cheerful  
and exuberant. Fires were lit, huge hurricane lamps suspended from  
balconies and windows, sweet-scented spices drying in long cocoons from  
high windowsills.  
  
The crowd moved slowly, sounds of a reverberating Arrawak drums and  
bamboo windchimes echo, laughter and joyful song. My bounty hoisted up  
onto the strong shoulders of dark-skinned men, each jostled good  
naturedly towards a clearing in the middle of a huge village courtyard.  
The crowd parted, and that is the first time I saw them. My reason to  
live.  
  
Two people approached. One was a woman, in her late 30's, whose belly  
was heavy and round with child. Her skin the color of dark copper, and  
she had the most gorgeous gentle eyes. She leaned heavily on her  
husband, a muscular man standing almost 6feet with slight streaks of  
pepper grey at the temples.  
  
They seem haunted, regardless of their euphoria.  
Menelek is also known as a Mindoki witch with the power of "sight", it  
is her that whispers to the would-be mother. A frown is a moments sway,  
then the mother touches me softly and her eyes brighten. "Dawta," She  
respectfully greets me, her eyes shining with rhapsody.  
  
This is how I met my destiny. From beneath my midnight boughs, I watch  
her daughter kick and scream, and twist her brilliant way into the  
world. Her heartbeat strong. Proud. The midwife, who attended the  
Mother, N'Dare and the father, Gideon, shook with joyous laughter as  
night dared to fall.  
  
"Dis childe, now. Sister of de first of Sumeria. Dawta o' Xamacia.  
Slayer." her gaze briefly floats over the darkening corners of the  
vampire plagued village, feeling their hateful demonic eyes witness the  
birth of their immortae reaper, The Vampire Slayer, sanctifying the  
ground forever.   
  
Her eyes sparkled with mirth as she felt them slide away, defeated in  
their task to kill every last babe to prevent the Slayer arising.  
Menelek turned back to her people, glorious in hope and victory.   
  
"Behold! Kendra, de vampire slayer!! Our savior!"  
  
I didn't realize then, how much my life would change with those words.   
  
~~*~~  
My struggle for rebirth continued for a year, tended as always by  
Menelek. The earth had been prepared. Inside; the first cradle was  
placed.   
  
Mother and Father, and new baby Kendra find their way always to me. They  
picnicked under my leafy hoops. Days into summer, she nestles in my  
roots and I sang to her with a sway of leafs. She walks to me, throwing  
her arms about me. She is fearless, climbing the branches into my leafy  
crown. Their happiness is my happiness but it only lasted for three  
years.  
  
Winter. A time of dying and slumber. My crown is a burnished rain which  
falls over the ground like hail. It is then that I see Mother again, in  
the distance, holding our daughter too close, too tightly as two men  
approach. She pleads with them, but they hold her back and a man with  
peppered grey hair takes the crying child from N'Dares arms. I cry out,  
deafened by the sound of weeping in the village below me.   
"Mother!," I cry out in vain. "What have you done?"  
  
Only the sound of the wind and the lengthening shadows answer. And in  
the reply, I cling to the secret treasure left in my care.  
  
~~*~~  
Days pass. Weeks surrender to months.   
  
Mother steals away in the night. She comes to me, her hands and tears  
streaking my broad chest and arms. "Our Dawta is gone, Dawta!" she  
cries. "They've taken my heart.. my womb is empty once again."  
  
But mine is not. I still hold our daughter. I shall endure. Her tears  
water me, fill me with the sound of her longing and sorrow and her  
guilt. For three days the villagers cannot move her.. her grief and  
comfort lie within me. But as she sleeps, Father returns and in quiet  
lament also, takes her into his arms and slowly returns down the path  
which he came.   
  
~~*~~  
A life is passing away. It is Father! He is shaking and stumbling on the  
invisible as he approaches. Is he drunk? With sorrow, I despair. He  
holds something glittering and dangerous within his fist. As he gets  
closer, I see his intentions lie in the unforgiving edge of an axe. "My  
wife is dying with grief and with loss," he growls in sorrow, his fist  
lying against my shoulder. In Kendras absence I live, the endless  
reminder of what is lost to her mother. "Dying of a broken heart, every  
time she sees you. I cannot loose her too."  
  
To him, there is only one way to settle this. Stepping back, he shakily  
stands, raising the axe with final determination.. he swings. The blade  
sizzles into the wood. Strike. Strike. The serpent hits and demolishes.  
He gives his anger and his grief to the handle of the axe. Blow after  
cutting blow, Father cleaves me from the earth.   
  
Somewhere before I am severed, there is a panic in him. He throws  
himself against me, desperate to take back the act. He pleads in a  
broken wash of Jamaican patois and English. "Oh, Goddess what have I  
done!?" He tries to push me back, as if that would heal the fatal  
wounds. Would make his wife well again, or his daughter return to his  
arms. I am her cradle, and now even I am gone. I weep with him, for now  
we are both separated from our daughters, forever. He calls out,  
hopelessly. I donot wish him such sorrow, so embrace him, and we fall  
together.   
  
I feel his heartbeat beneath me, and as it fades, it echoes through me.  
Dawn creeps forward, and I am lifted by many hands. Tears fall where I  
once stood. They carry him from me. They bury him today, till  
then I sit beside the forgotten path of Slayers. In that time, I am  
cleaved again from myself. Roots and branches broken or sawed to fuel  
holy fires lit in villages without the Slayers holy blood. I am taken  
day by day, until there is barely enough to cover the ground. Until the  
last of me is taken. There is fire that awaits my sanctuary, my funeral  
pyre. Suddenly there is a commotion. Voices raised. I feel the smoke and  
the heat. Flames take... and are gone. Banished by the hands that now  
hold me. Familiar hands.. of Mother. "Dawta," she says and I am placed  
to her breast like a human babe.   
  
Another year, and I go from cradle to a guardian sheild. She carves me,  
pares me down by eye, till I am the scalpel. I am forged into the  
revolving shape of a Holy temple spire; a filament of human biology; a  
needle and thread she had used to sew and patchwork the quilt  
on our daughters empty bed; and the track of her tears - as sharp as a  
steel blade.  
  
Mother sands me with her hands. Strong and giving hands make me smooth  
like silk. At night she clasps me to her naked breast, I feel Mothers  
heartbeat; defiant and hopeful regardless of all that has been taken  
from her.   
  
They're here for me. Menelek who gives a blessing, one that will puzzle  
me for years to come. She says; "You shall serve both the true and the  
reflection, and only serve the one."  
Mother holds me a little longer, till she places a kiss upon me "Look  
after our dawta, lill' one."  
  
"As long as I am with her, I shall."  
  
~~*~~  
  
His name is Mboto. He is the guardian and Watcher of our daughter,  
Kendra. He places me into an empty glass preserving jar to look out upon  
her world still divided by an invisible wall. I am the prize, he tells  
her. The goal of which her life will surround and be governed. Her eyes  
search for me, and for a moment I wonder if she remembers me. Devoid of  
my rough skin, the birds song in my arms and the blanket of leaves that  
surrounded me. Her eyes brighten as if in reply.Her hands feel the  
extension of her mothers. Does she know what gift her mother gives? As  
she grows, the dark path of her destiny fills her childhood dreams. Her  
dolly on the bed is replaced by me; a childs talisman against the Demons  
that are all too real in her world. Every night she comes for me, touch  
giving her comfort and peace.   
  
She carries me always and I serve her well. Quiet times; she uses me as  
a bookmark to the countless volumes of Slayers study she must endure. In  
battle, when I strike, I bite well. I must, for the truth that I hold  
can only be sensed by the nocturnal. Her ability is always true, so my  
secrets will be safe.  
  
But first, she had a hard lesson to learn.  
  
Kendra was 11 years old, and already showing the prominent strength,  
agility and speed for someone twice her age. Perhaps that made her a  
little conceited and belligerent, but its other was the incomparable  
loneliness of a destiny she was to carry alone.  
  
Although the slayer life was an isolated one, her training often took  
her around and through villages in the valleys of the Blue Mountains,  
covertly among families and children. It was then she came across a  
Mother and Daughter fleeing a second rate demon from New Orleans. Kendra  
had stepped in and it fled, sensing imminent defeat. As a thankyou the  
mother had suddenly kissed the abashed Slayer on the forehead. A  
maternal gesture so manifold and soul-beautiful that it rocked Kendra  
down to her socks. Longing so real, she could almost touch it.. Kendra  
spun quickly and quietly, both ashamed of the never ending ache to be  
reunited with her own mother. They became her living epiphany.  
  
It was a mistake to go back, but Kendra was not listening to the Slayers  
rulebook, she was listening, for the first time, to her heart.   
  
As she rounded the corner, she was shocked to see Mother and daughter  
waiting for her. She approached wearily, then quite suddenly sprinted  
towards them, frightened, by what she was sensing. Two bodies crucified.  
Grief and anger swept her training away, and left her defenseless  
against the shadow solidifying behind her.  
  
"I hope you like my calling card, Slayer." The vampire spat malice,  
throwing his head back in ecstasy as she turned towards him harshly. Her  
face was open and raw, contorted with grief and outrage - he burned it  
into his minds eye struggling not to orgasm. He attacked her then, while  
her emotions warred for dominance.  
  
He was arrogant and older than she could ever be, and he was winning.  
Brave and resourceful, but ultimately Kendra had lost her reason. He was  
punching harder and faster than she could defend. Eventually, she got  
the upper hand, throwing him to the ground and straddling his chest went  
to bring me down hard on his chest. Three inches from his heart, he  
caught her hands briefly stopping her.   
  
"Emotional wee thing, ain't ya?" he laughed. Kendra scowled low, but  
ultimately she wasn't really listening, the task at hand taking  
priority.   
  
"Even if ya kill me, there will be another to take my place..." he  
sniggered, defiling the Slayers motif with malicious intentions. "Or  
perhaps two..."  
  
The words slowly sunk in, taking her absolute conviction in dusting him  
to the gory revelation he insinuated. . He throws her off, the advantage  
stolen and all too quickly she is the one on the ground, struggling to  
stop him from impaling her with her own stake.  
  
"What's the matter, lost ya nerve?" he scoffs mockingly pressing the tip  
of the stake to her heart. "Don't you know that emotions make you weak?  
At least for you."  
  
Suddenly he is thrown off by an unseen force, myself skittering into the  
bushes with the impact. Kendra gathers herself quickly to follow, she  
sees Mboto holding a broken handle of an axe fighting off the vampire.  
To see her watcher in trouble, she solidified her defenses and jumped in  
the fray to protect Mboto.  
  
The vampire has Mboto in his grasp, squeezing the air from Mbotos throat  
with his hands. Kendra jumps on the vampire twisting his head savagely  
and breaking it in one shot. Mboto falls to the side, gasping for air.  
The vampire just laughs, lurching away and cracks his neck back into  
position.   
  
Kendra attacks him again, her eyes traveling briefly to the broken  
bodies of her charges. He takes advantage again, clutching her by  
her hair, flips her over his head. Slamming her to the ground, he gives  
her a savage elbow for good measure. Kendra twists out of his grasp and  
high kicks knocking him off balance. The vampire sprawls back, then  
advances. Mboto calls her name, she turns and suddenly I am being thrown  
towards her. She springs up as I am thrust forward and catches me in one  
hand. She swings her arm around and suddenly I strike.  
  
*DUST*  
  
Slowly she rose to her full body length and made her way towards Mboto,  
apprehensive and apologetic. The reprecussions could be dealt with  
later. Duty called. Kendra saw the disappointment and regretted being  
the one to place it in his eyes. Ashamed and defeated, she hung her  
head. His voice came to her, softly but strong in conviction.  
  
"Tonight you have learnt a bitter lesson, but learnt it nonetheless. The  
consequences you now know of.." his voice fades as she turns quietly to  
see them. "They will rise tonight. Duty calls you - Slayer."  
  
Not Kendra, but Slayer. She nods seriously, goes about her business  
quietly and drives every emotion into her furious footsteps to await  
their arising. To be close to someone is to make them the mark for every  
vampire to use in battle. To love was to be weakened and to put  
innocence into danger. As she waited for Mother and Daughter to rise she  
stripped herself bare. Kendra the girl had died with them. And when they  
did rise - they were met by The Slayer.   
  
I am no longer a bookmark. I am. Excaliber.  
  
***  
Many things have changed. The other Slayer is called Buffy Summers. When  
they first met, it was at the sharpest end of a blade. Our daughter had  
mistaken the first Slayer as a demoness to her vampire lover. Easy  
mistake.   
  
It went against everything Kendra had ever known. So they fought, drew a  
line in the sand and pushed each others buttons. But their bond was as  
written in the stars as it was forged by blood. Kendra could not turn  
her back on Buffy, and in part, Buffys obsession with Angel. She saved  
them both from a certain death. When they parted, it was an uneasy truce  
but a truce nonetheless.  
  
There came a day when that allegiance ended. Angel had turned back into  
Angelus, Mboto had sent our daughter back. After years not being without  
each other, she gave me to Buffy to slay Angel with. Buffy didn't know  
the power of this gift, but Kendra did. And now so do you.  
  
I was not there to keep my promise to our mother. To me; the world ends.   
  
***  
And begins again.  
I am in anothers hands now. She cannot hear my story, although I try to  
tell her the history of our daughter, Kendra. The soul that has made me,  
the hands that shaped me. The one whom I loved and is gone. She was in  
love with the newly soul-restored vampire Angel. The memory of Angelus  
taunts those who are bidden to remember, and the reaction we have is one  
of retribution. I ache to send him to the well deserved hell he so  
richly deserves. I told the Blond that everytime she held me. I make her  
palms itch.   
  
She placed me in the huge storage trunk at the foot of her bed. It holds  
other stakes but none quite like me. Jamaica holds my flowers as its  
national signature. I am called Lignum vitae, "the tree of life" and  
that is why I am the Slayers Excaliber and her cradle. At night, the  
Blond takes me into her hands and sighs. We are both left with the  
memories.   
  
And it is never enough.  
  
A year passes. Angel has left for LA seeking retribution. I mourn for  
Kendra as I see him live, unchallenged. There is another in the Slayers  
life, her name is Faith. I see, even if Buffy does not, the conflict she  
will bring to this group. In time - it comes true. Faith is not evil,  
she is lost. She comes and goes at will.   
  
Final rites. Dracula is among us. I remember him from a near dance he  
and Kendra were in a few years ago in New Orleans. I wonder if he  
remembers me? Buffy is fighting and winning. A moments hesitation and  
she reaches for me. I will kill him... if he can be killed.   
  
*Strike* Dust.   
  
YES! She watches him bounce down the dungeon stairs turning into  
particles of earth. As she walks away, I am tasting his blood on me. I  
know then, that we are lost. She turns back, sensing something is wrong.  
And I bite again the forming body of the master. He will not gather form  
in her presence, but he will, and he when he does, he will hold the  
secrets I have long fought to contain. I don't know how to warn the  
others. How to tell Buffy that the greatest challenge yet is to come.  
And it comes....  
  
~*~  
A million stars wink in the night tropical sky. Dracula in Jamaica, slow  
walks the empty streets of Kingston, my secret staining his bloody lips  
with the most excruitating pain he had ever felt. Kendra wasn't the only  
one slayer born 21 years ago. And most importantly  
  
...she wasn't Kendra either.  
  
The End. 


End file.
